Category Archives: Politics
How to involve people in local democracy: include booze
I love this story from a New Hampshire council meeting. (The article disappears behind a paywall eventually, so here’s a PDF version.) Essentially protesters against the town rules against street drinking decided to protest by turning a council meeting into a drinking game – having a drink whenever certain phrases were uttered. About six members [...]
Council houses, or homes?
Since I’ve moved to London I’ve had five main addresses, not including a couple of stints ‘between homes’. Effectively a different home every 2.6 years. Of course, if I’d been living in social housing, that would have been one home for all that time – and, actually, if I were a social tenant the chances [...]
Dear Taxpayer, don’t buy me an iPad
Ages ago I – sort of – defended Cambridge City Council against the allegation they were ‘wasting money on iPads’. The story was that they were looking at spending thousands of pounds equipping their councillors with iPads to save money on printing. My contention was that it was possible this would, actually, be a way [...]
More direct democracy
Another edict extending direct democracy has come forth from Eric Pickles. This time that a local referendum will be forced whenever a local council increases council tax by more than a pre-set amount. As a government fan boy you would expect me to support it, but while I’m definitely in the fan boy category (why [...]
Big Society and smaller councils
Continuing the Big Society theme from yesterday my interest was piqued by an article by Philip Johnston in yesterday’s Telegraph (David Cameron must not be blinded by his vision) in which he argues that local councils should be the vehicle, and not the victim, of the Big Society. Perhaps unsurprisingly the article generated a number [...]
Big Society – it’s already there, we just need more
The Prime Minister got the headlines yesterday for his ‘launch’ of the Big Society. Along with a lot of scepticism about what the Big Society actually means. It is a concept that a lot of people are struggling to understand. And if you don’t understand something it must be wrong. Right? Plenty were there to [...]
Should failure be the new black?
On Wednesday I attended a
The deficit and deficit deniers (Wandsworth branch)
Local democracy returned to its Wandsworth home last night with the full council taking place for the first time in over a year in the council chamber. The chamber had been out of action after the roof partially collapsed. It was then out of action even longer when it was discovered that asbestos seemed to [...]
Free councillors?
John Redwood is not everyone’s cup of tea, even within the Conservative Party, and while I don’t read his blog that often he has an interesting post today. Asking (but not answering) the question Do Councillors want to be free? he discusses the problems of officer led authorities: Labour arrived in office in 1997 keen [...]
Council surgeries revisited
I was emailed yesterday about a post from over a year ago (although coincidentally referenced only a few days ago) on council surgeries and asked – without going into details – if I had any further thoughts that might help another council who were looking at their surgeries. In the spirit of openness (I have [...]
